Players must recover - Davis

Those Crewe Alexandra playing currently carrying slight knocks have been told they must recover quickly in time for the season's opener at the beginning of next month.

"We need everyone back sooner rather than later" - Steve Davis

The Alex narrowly lost their latest friendly with Blackburn Rovers this week when Harry Davis, Lee Molyneux, Vadaine Oliver, AJ Leitch-Smith and Anthony Grant were all absentees - although none of them with serious injuries.

"We've only got a couple of weeks left so we need to get these players training and back involved in games as soon as possible before that first game," manager Steve Davis told This is Staffordshire. "It would be a risk to put someone in on the first day who had missed two or three weeks prior to that, certainly and I'm not sure I would do that.

"It is nothing really serious with any of them, just a few knocks and dead-legs," he added. "But we need everyone back sooner rather than later."